Here is what we know about Navy Captain Mark Kelly: He spent a 24-year career serving his country as a naval aviator. He flew 39 combat missions in Desert Storm. He has flown four missions piloting the space shuttle while racking up over 38 days in space. He stood by his wife when she nearly died, her career cut short by an assassin’s bullet, and has supported her in her efforts to end gun violence, which they know all too personally.

We also know he is a lifelong gun owner, one who also understands that there are flaws in the system, loopholes that make it entirely too easy for people who should not have firearms to have the ability to get them, unfettered by rules, by regulation, by the common sense safeguards that should address the purchase of a deadly weapon.

March 8th, while in a Tucson gun shop to buy a 45 pistol, Mark Kelly saw a used AR-15 semi automatic assault type weapon.

“As I was leaving, I noticed a used AR-15. Bought that too. Even to buy an assault weapon, the background check only takes a matter of minutes.” Captain Mark Kelly

He says it was to show just how easy, with no extra steps, it is to buy an assault rifle. It was a simple exercise, an object lesson in highlighting the gaps in our system. His word should have been enough. But it was not.

What happened next was an embarrassment to this country, an embarrassment to the millions of gun owners who are not frothing fools on the internet. The gun enthusiast community, in this case they have earned the name Gun Nuts, unleashed their hate. Their outrage, fueled by lies and spin in the echo chambers that inform the community of gun zealots, was whipped into a frothy, irrational, intractable defense against everything and everyone that does not march in lockstep with their narrow fringe views.

They saw nefarious intent. And they unloaded the entire magazine – all without knowing the man, without knowing his motives; but since his views differed from theirs, they turned like rabid dogs (albeit, toothless rabid dogs). They didn’t respond to say that, while they respected his opinion, they disagreed. What they did was call him “hypocrite” (sic… in an interesting variety of spellings); jackass, commie [always a favorite], “libtard,” political Pharisee, douchebag [again with multiple, creative spellings], piece of shit and many more names in that common juvenile theme.

Facebook pages lit up after a couple of the gun forums pushed the original breitbart.com article to pages at Facebook. Guns.com had one of the more hate-filled screeds, populated by folks calling Captain Kelly’s purchase and statement everything from felonious to traitorous to, of course communist.

And the vitriol did not contain itself to gun fanatics…over 4,000 people made comments on Captain Kelly’s Facebook page. And while I cannot imagine it was intentional, it has proven to be the best gun nut troll ever. If it were not for the froth spewing vitriol, outrage, and embarrassingly poor behavior it would be funny.

This boils down to one thing: A lifelong gun owner, after watching his wife struggle through two years of painful, frustrating recuperation after nearly losing her to a would-be assassin’s gun, decided to make a stand against gun violence; not to ban guns, not to deprive anyone of their Second Amendment rights, but to stand for the reasoned principles of ensuring that everyone who buys a gun is legally allowed to do so. By taking that stand, Mark Kelly brought out the very worst in the gun community. He brought out the gun nuts, the haters, the irrational amd the irresponsible; all the character traits that the gun owner community swear they do not have. But they do. They do and they shout it out loud. To those who post hate, who post vitriol: You will now share the responsibility for the passage of new gun laws because the rest of America has now seen how you think and how you act… and they do not trust you. Thanks for clarifying just why it is we need new regulations. You’ve done your country a great service.

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McAllister is a life long liberal, environmentalist, Eagle Scout, and even gun owner – born in Harlan, Kentucky and has lived in Southern California, New York City and now resided in Lexington, Kentucky as a Systems Analyst.

Author: McAllisterI am a Systems Analyst/Architect with 35 years of experience working in the Media and Entertainment, Military, and Government industries. I have worked for Fortune 50 corporations throughout the United States.
Currently I live in Central Kentucky but have lived in New York City and LA.
My avocation is nature photography and have, over the past 35 years photographed and published nearly 10 Million scenic postcards of Kentucky.
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